When they were taking bids for the stadium, they got a bid that said.."I'll lease the land to you for 99 years at a $1 a year. I'll put in whatever you need infrastructure wise, you just let me name it and develop the land around it."
The day after the bid submissions were supposedly closed, Tempe was late getting theirs in and the committee voted to allow them to submit, even though they were late. Originally, Tempe wasn't going to, but the Bidwell's persuaded the city to do so under the premise that the Bidwells would get the development rights.
When the awarding meeting took place, Tempe won it (no surprise) but when Tempe did the proposal, the location was in a place that was in airport landing pattern, and at that point in the landing, Aircraft are about 600-900 feet. The planes would fly directly over the stadium, and the FAA had not seen the proposal. When the FAA did see it, they nullified it.
They had a second round of bids, but by that time, John Long, the guy who made the great proposal I mentioned first, was already suing for the sports authority for irregularities in the original bid process. Eventually, it was awarded to Glendale after Tempe decided not to enter.
Politics suck, but it's a great stadium. The AZ tax payers said "We built this to keep you here, but you need to field a winning team." The Bidwell's received offers from several cities to move but the NFL nixed them because of the market saturation of other teams. LA didn't want them. All I need it one REALLY GOOD project to land that will make me a billionaire and I will buy the Cardinals outright. If they just followed the Jerry Colangelo method, AZ would have a contender.
